She's Stitchin Again: Two posts in one week

I know, not normal for me. But I had to share this.

One of my quilting friends and I went to a sewing supply give away. I didn't find anything much but she got several things.

She ended up riding home with another friend because when she accepted my invitation she had forgotten that she had agreed to meet with the other friend for lunch.

One of our other sewing friends had told me about a quilt shop, that isn't what I consider "local" but we do frequent it, having Christmas fabric 50% off for the Fourth of July weekend. And since the interstate home was bumper to bumper (we live just off the main route to the beach in Alabama), I decided I would take the detour to the quilt shop. Traffic for the first part of my detour wasn't a whole lot better.

On the way to this quilt shop is Chelsea Antiques. I decided I would rather wander through the antique store.

While there I snagged a plastic bag full of old quilt blocks. The lady that checked me out said she was so glad that someone was going to take them. She asked if I was going to finish the quilt. When I told her yes, but I wasn't going to hand stitch them she said she would like to see it when I finished.

When I texted the sewing posse about it they wanted pictures. Here's what I sent them.

I told them that they smelled and what could I do? One said put dryer sheets in the bag and another said lay them in the sun for a day.

OK, I put the dryer sheets in the bag overnight and then I put them out in the sun, well shade.

A couple of hours later, remember we're in Alabama, DH came to the door of the studio and said your fabric is getting wet. Dang, I ran down and gathered all of them back up, soaking wet and by the time I got back on the deck with dripping blocks, the sun came back out. It was the only rain we got all day!!!

I decided I would press them dry with some sizing to help with the smell.

How'd that go? Not too good.

The yellow block was the first one off the pile. My ironing board and my iron were a mess. The yellow ran.

Next was the pink.

The red one that I thought was suspect did fine. Sew, back to the sewing posse. What to do? There were several suggestions, Retayne, Synthrapol, and Color Catchers. Color Catchers were the only one of these that I had on hand. So I loaded the washing machine and added 3 color catchers.

I was a believer in color catchers, now I'm going to be a promotor. Here are the culprits after the process.